I am – Hercules!!
Survivor : Lost :: Desperate Housewives : Tuesday Night Book Club.
It’s a reality show about the sex lives of a gaggle of Scottsdale hausfraus, most of them colossal bores. One comes away with the feeling that too often all the important stuff is happening off-camera, and a lot of the participants are just manufacturing false drama whenever the camera crew comes visiting.
Its producers could learn a lot from its Viacom sister shows - “Real World,” “Survivor,” “Amazing Race,” “Big Brother” - and the other series that make it a point to stick with their characters 24/7.
But what matters Herc’s opinion?
Variety says:
… ABC's fake "Desperate Housewives" meets Bravo's "The Real Housewives of Orange County" in this wholly unconvincing unscripted series, which uses voiceover narration and musical montages to further blur the lines between drama and reality. … Curiosity could breed tune-in, but this is strictly a cheap knockoff for those who can't survive a summer hiatus from housewives married to, and often equipped with, oversized boobs. … The biggest problem with "Tuesday Night Book Club," however, is that despite insisting the participants "are not actors," all the situations feel staged. It's as if each woman was instructed to sit down with her spouse and discuss their relationship while pretending to ignore the camera crew. In most reality shows, such exchanges are amplified through direct-to-camera interviews. "Book Club" instead tries to bridge those gaps through an omniscient narrator and musical interludes designed to convey how the vacant-looking characters are feeling, and thus resembles a perfume ad as frequently as it does a TV show. In part for that reason, the characters initially have less depth than a postage stamp …
The Hollywood Reporter says:
… "Book Club" is one of those "wink, wink, nudge, nudge" series. You know, the kind that promote themselves as giving unvarnished looks into real-life issues facing women in a variety of situations but that mostly exist to exploit them. Forget about probing hearts and minds, as they do with honesty and sensitivity in such programs as PBS Frontline's "The Farmer's Wife" or "Country Boys." Forget about getting under the skin of subjects, as in the "American High" series or the documentary "Hoop Dreams." In "Book Club," skin isn't for getting under; it's for showing off. …
Entertainment Weekly gives it a “D-plus” and says:
… Book club? Please. These Scottsdale, Ariz., women don't read. They whine, they shop, and they obsess over the way they look (they appear to be so chock-full of additives and preservatives they make Funyuns seem organic). …
The Milwaukee Journal says:
… a lot less entertaining than reading a book. …
The Rocky Mountain News says:
…This is summer TV at its worst since it gives book clubs a bad name. Winnie the Pooh was probably the last book these group members read. And they probably couldn't understand it. …
10 p.m. Tuesday. CBS.
